Fear of Flying

There are irrational fears, like being tied down and covered in honey while red ants nibble you to death, and then there are true, solid terrors that can anyone to tears: traveling to the other side of the planet on three different planes, over a 48 hour period, alone with a 2 year old, well there can be no disputing that. It sits somewhere between eating maggots and a long weekend with my mother-in-law, and my pre-trip jitters have me sick with anticipation. About two days ago I started to obsess about the schedule and thinking about how, 12 hours on a flight staffed by the old-guard, crusty, and thoroughly unhelpful Tokyo-LAX Northwest flight crew might make my life really, really hard. Fortunately, the later legs back to India are on Singapore Airlines—which couldn’t be more of the opposite in terms of service and amenities—so, if I can make it through the leg to Japan, I should be OK.

If I can glean anything from the 2.5 hour flight from Seattle to Orange County, it is that traveling with a small, crying child allows you to see the worst and best in people. For the awful dirty looks that I received from people (“can’t you control your child?’), and the temptation to lash back with all kinds of venom, it was a kind older woman who came out of first class to offer her uneaten fruit salad that I will take with me….I can only hope that there are more folks like this in the coming days.

Why I Love this Time: How many people, much less fathers have the opportunity to do something like this, alone and by choice, with their children?